Mind Gem
by scDirk
Summary: When Harry visits his vault for the first time he find a blood red gem that starts affecting a part of him. Make an educated guess what it effects... Will follow canon storyline to some degree but there will be plenty of differences. Clever!Harry Powerful!Harry Good!Dumbles. Pairings undecided as of yet.
1. Chapter 1

Harry was scooping some of the golden coins that he remembered Hagrid call galleons into the money pouch Griphook had provided when he came across a blood red gem in his mountain of golden coins. Initially he wanted to show it to the goblin and half-giant but when he picked it up that idea suddenly became much less interesting to him and instead he stuffed it into his trouser pocket to be examined at a later time when he was alone.

When he had put about two hundred galleons into his money pouch he figured he would have enough; Hagrid had said he would only need about thirty but Harry figured that he would be spending a lot of money in the book shop in order to try to fit in for the first time of his life.

"Is this vault the all that I have in Gringotts?" Harry asked out of curiosity.

"Indeed it is, mister Potter. And before you ask how much it is, this vault currently has about 120,000 galleons a large portion of which comes from your inheritance from your parents but an even larger portion comes from people thanking you for defeating the dark lord Voldemort."

"Hm, interesting. Are there any limits on how much I can withdraw at any time?"

"No, there are not."

After Harry and Hagrid got a small package from a mysterious vault and had gotten back to the surface Hagrid went to the leaky cauldron to get a drink to soothe his stomach and suggested Harry get his robes first. Harry, however, thought it a better idea to get something to put his things into first and Hagrid soon saw reason and agreed with him so he pointed Harry to the luggage store which Harry promptly entered.

After browsing the store for about ten minutes Harry choose a wooden trunk with three compartments, one normal storage compartment expanded to be eight times the normal size on the inside, one library compartment able to store up to ten thousand books and keep them organized automatically and one wardrobe compartment which was also big enough to store so many clothes that Harry expected he would never be able to fill it.

However, while browsing for a school bag to go along with it, the shop owner recognized him and immediately tried to sell him a better trunk, one that he said was even better than the one famous master auror Alastor Moody used, but Harry insisted that he couldn't accept that. In the end the shopkeeper was able to talk him into accepting a bag that was linked to the trunk for free so as long as he kept everything in his trunk he would never forget anything. He was also unable to refuse extra set of permanent charms to be placed on the trunk and his bag, such as featherlight charm, a permanent charm to shrink and resize at a tap of a wand and a lock based on his magical signature.

Having paid twenty-five galleons for what Harry suspected were products worth close to a hundred, Harry put the trunk the shopkeeper had shrunk for him into his pocket; he had gotten a firm warning to never ever put his trunk into the bag, bag into trunk was fine but never trunk into bag, he joined Hagrid outside of the shop.

Now that Harry had his trunk Harry followed Hagrid to Madam Malkin's robes for all occasions and went in just as a blond haired boy left. Harry got his required school clothes and even got a couple of sets of muggle clothes the seamstresses had tailored for him. He even was allowed to walk out of the shop in a set. And he again thought that the shopkeeper had given him a reduced price, for the total he had to pay for all his clothes came to only about nine galleons. All his clothes went directly into his wardrobe compartment of his trunk, which he got a compliment on from the kind woman.

His clothes shopping done, Hagrid led Harry from one shop to another to get his other various supplies until they finally got to the book shop, Flourish and Blotts. Harry had to admit that he went a bit crazy on his book shopping once he fired out that he could put as many books into the basket he picked up at the front of the store and it wouldn't fill up. In the end he of course got all the books on his book list as well as the ones for the rest of his year at Hogwarts that he could figure out. He also got a handful of books on recent history and a couple of introductory books to the wizarding world.

In the end Harry left the shop with about thirty books which again cost him less than he expected they were worth and being called a budding Ravenclaw, not that he knew what that meant. He was also handed a self-updating owl order catalogue at the counter which he could use to order more books, which was something he planned on doing a lot; Harry had always dreamed about being free of the Dursleys and getting his own private library, a dream he now had the means to fulfill.

The strangest experience, however, was his visit to Olivanders' to buy a wand, for not only did mister Olivander seem to be expecting him, he also got the brother wand of the one that had given him his scar on his forehead and killed his parents. Once the wand had chosen him after trying what seemed like half the wands in the little shop mister Olivander told Harry that he was destined for great things.

"After all, he-who-must-not-be-named did great things. Terrible, yes, but great."

"I hope you don't expect me to do terrible things too, mister Olivander."

The old man's eyes widened slightly at this, as if those words put a break in the expected turn of events and Harry heard Hagrid take a sharp intake of breath before mister Olivander responded.

"I most certainly do not expect you to travel down the same road as he-who-must-not-be-named. For one, while your wand is his brother because they share a core, the phoenix feather, they are by no means twins. Much can be learned from the various ingredients of one's chosen wand. For example, a phoenix feather indicates that the wizard is at least fairly powerful. The holly in your wand most likely indicates that you are a good person and will use the wand to do good. The dark lord's wand, however, was made of yew which while more ambiguous more often than not leads their wizard down a path towards darker magics, which in turn has a good chance to lead the wizard to more evil pursuits."

After hearing that, Harry made a mental note to research wand lore at some point for from what he heard it could be a powerful tool to assess wizards and witches.

After Harry had gotten his wand, only one stop remained, which was to get a pet. Hagrid in the end decided to get Harry a pet owl for his birthday. The snowy owl that they ended up getting from Eyeloops Owl Emporium seemed to instantly become attached to Harry and Hagrid told the young wizard that it was likely that if the connection continued to grow between the boy and his owl they might at some point form a familiar bond, which was something that Harry also made a mental note of to research further.

 **AN: The first couple of chapters will be between 1000 and 2000 words so I can build up a bit of a backlog. I would really like to hear any and all suggestions on how both how to improve my style, for I know it is utter ass, and where to lead this story to. I do have a couple of general idea's and some pages of bullet points on where to take this story but even I get writers block and having plenty of points keeps that from happening.**

Published: 18 March 2016  
Updated: 19 March 2016; 22 March 2016


	2. Chapter 2

When harry had gotten back to the Dursleys – Hagrid had acquired a train ticket to Little Winging for him – Harry noticed that his relatives seemed to fear him. This development on the one hand suited him just fine because they avoided him like the plague, but on the other hand it got annoying really fast when they would scatter from any room the young wizard entered. But he could understand their fear, because if their roles were reversed he was sure they would use magic on him. But Harry tried to be the better person and kept polite to them the few moments he was out of his room.

For most of his time was spent in his new room, which until recently had been Dudley's second bedroom. In said bedroom he spent most of his time reading the various books he had purchased in Diagon Alley. He started with the introductory books to the wizarding world and used a piece of parchment to keep track of the various other books mentioned so he could order them later as reference material.

The first night after his shopping trip, Harry had the urge to put the blood red gem he had gotten from his vault under his pillow while he slept, so he did just that. It strangely wasn't any more uncomfortable to sleep with this rock under his pillow then it was to sleep without it there on the already uncomfortable bed.

While reading the introductory books Harry came across mentions of the subjects Ancient Runes and Arithmancy which were respectively needed for the creation of most magical devices and wards and for the creation of spells. He decided to ignore the note that said that the subjects were only taught from third year on in Hogwarts and put both subjects on his ever increasing list of books to order.

Another thing he was glad he had come across while reading the introductory books was how to get onto platform 9 and ¾ which Hagrid had forgotten to mention. It really was very simple but Harry figured that if he hadn't known how to do it he couldn't have done it himself and that would have been very embarrassing and not at all a good way to make a first impression.

When Harry was done reading the introductory books, which took him a couple of days, the boy wizard started reading his first year books while again making notes of which books were mentioned to order them later. This came in handy especially with his potions book for it appeared that a lot of foreknowledge was expected in that subject. Harry could see how this would be a hindrance to those like him who hadn't lived in the wizarding world.

Done with his school books a week later, Harry decided to order the books he had make note of during his reading. When he first opened the owl order catalogue Harry was surprised to see that it already had a credit of 250 galleons for which he could buy books. Well, books and other things, for it turned out that the catalogue was for more than just one shop in Diagon Alley. He could, for example, also buy potion ingredients with it.

In the end Harry spent more than a hundred galleons on all the books he wished to buy, which turned out to be as easy as tapping what you wanted with your wand and then on the first page confirming your order. Of course, after having ordered them he had to wait for them to be delivered. The boy-who-lived spent this time by reading through the catalogue and seeing what they had to offer. He didn't end up buying anything else but he did make a mental note of the so called ever-refilling pantry which he figured he might need if the Dursleys' fear of him wore of and they stopped feeding him properly at some point.

It surprised Harry greatly when it only took a couple of hours for his purchase to arrive when he figured it would take at least a couple of days which was mentioned in the catalogue. But Harry continued reading with vigor. Starting with the various reference works he had ordered.

While reading his books, Harry began noticing that his reading speed had increased greatly since he had entered the wizarding world. Initially he could read about thirty pages per hour, but that speed was now a bit over sixty; he had counted. Another thing he noticed was that it was easier for him to make connections between what he was reading and prior knowledge. This didn't make him some kind of super genius but he figured that it would be a massive help. He thought that with this ability he would be able to come in the top couple percent of his year. That was, of course, dependent on the fact that he hoped that wizarding children weren't all cleverer then muggle children.

He spent most of his time until the first of September reading almost a lot of the books he had purchased. And noticed that his reading speed kept slowly increasing. With his increased reading speed and cleverness Harry figured he might be able to continue study all the things muggle children would learn during high school if he could procure the necessary books. But for that he would need pounds, muggle money, of which he had none.

So he turned to the catalogue with which he could procure a lot and turned to the section from Gringotts which he had previously mostly ignored. The section turned out to be more interesting than expected. The two things that stuck out to him as being useful were the ability to increase ones catalogue credit directly from the vault and to order money in a variety of currencies to be own delivered for a small delivery fee of 1% of the total amount to be delivered (rounded up to the nearest sickle.)

In the end Harry decided to have order 100 galleons to be converted to pounds (at a rate of nearly 25 pounds to the galleon) and delivered to him for a galleon. When the money arrived a couple of hours later Harry decided to go to London to do some muggle shopping the following day.

When the next day rolled around Harry went to London with the bus in the morning after the Dursleys that he would be gone for the day and be back for dinner. Of course he took his bag connected to his trunk and his wallet which he had put inside it. He first spent a couple of hours going from bookshop to bookshop buying whatever books took his fancy. He bought a myriad of language guides and dictionaries from various languages, both dead and alive, course books for both high school, sixth form and university, and even a dozen books of literature.

Following his book buying spree, Harry had a nice lunch before continuing on. He visited an optometrist to get some better glasses which he was very satisfied with. He even got a pair of sunglasses that had the correct lenses too. Harry also spend close to an hour in an office store buying various notebooks and other writing supplies. He figured that even though the supply list called for parchment and quills, there was no reason he couldn't make his notes on normal paper with pen or pencil. In the end his shopping trip was very successful.

 **AN: As you can see, this chapter too isn't very long. That is mainly because I have laid out what I want to write about in each chapter, and there just wasn't a whole lot going on during the summer before Harry's first year that was worth writing about. The next chapter, however, is promising to be longer for there are a couple of interesting conversations during the train ride… Also, I want to thank my single reviewer for pointing out a couple of typo's in the first chapter.**

Published: 03 April 2016  
Updated: -


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